Michael

on 18 Nov 08

I’d build the best, most intelligent ad platform. Yahoo’s less sophisticated users could make Y! so much more than Google per impression if their ads were better targeted and they had more advertisers on board. To do that they need better employees, though…

Phil McThomas

on 18 Nov 08

Fire Jerry Yang, again, just to make sure.

Jeff Turner

on 18 Nov 08

I’d sell to MS before the shares hit 50 cents a share.

Scott

on 18 Nov 08

Stop trying to copy market leaders (google search, facebook, etc). And focus on the Yahoo! tools/sites that people love (flickr).

wtf

1°) communicate on the “being an alternative”
2°) externalize less used features
3°) make the visitor feels he’s a part of the process, maybe like ranknoodle do with its “vote” feature (which i find genius)

Daniel

on 18 Nov 08

Like Scott said, focus on the good stuff rather than playing catch-up.

Also note that Flickr seems a more independent entity from Yahoo! and it’s way more focused. Maybe other parts of Yahoo! could benefit from being more focused in their functionality, and also less a small piece of the huge behemoth that is Yahoo! The idea of a single, comprehensive “internet portal” is dead to me.

But hey, I don’t really use Yahoo!’s stuff, I just like doling out irresponsible advice :-)

Allie Beck

on 18 Nov 08

Go all in on the strategy to build the process infrastructure for cloud computing.

And make sure the Chief Yahoo has an ankle bracelet on him so people can know when he’s coming

Yahoo is making money, they are profitable. Stop trying to do the “me too” reaction, and create a direction, then execute that. You don’t have to be #1, just need to be the most profitable, and an open platform to grow 3rd party support.

Anonymous Coward

on 18 Nov 08

Focus on the core competencies, buy some stock back, and retool existing assets to generate more revenue.

Core competencies like mail, search, and news need more attention. Strike a deal with Nintendo or Sony to be the primary search and mail provider on their consoles. Partner with other content holders to integrate their content, such as: show snippets of books at Amazon that match search criteria. Their products are good, just not popular. Nothing wrong with being #2 so long as you’re damn good at it.

Buy some stock back while it’s down. It’s a gamble but the stock trend is already in a downward spiral, dropping further won’t make headlines. If the stock goes up, then that may help to remove the smell of death, increase investor confidence, and curb some negative press.

Retooling assets like Flikr or De.licio.us would be a good move. Raise your hand if you know what you get with a paid Flikr or De.licio.us account? (No googling the answer, that’s cheating.) I have no clue what benefit a paid Flikr account has, and that needs to change… either the benefits aren’t good enough for people to talk/blog about or Yahoo’s dropped the ball on advertising the paid plans.

Last… I’d spin off the least profitable assets. They may have better luck as a smaller, more focused entity.

I would stop trying to beat Google at their game. Then I would focus my efforts on being the best in the world at no more then 2 or 3 things. Say “no” to everything else. Focus is not only better for customers but also helps the employees channel their efforts on a few things rather then many.

When Steve Jobs took over Apple that is exactly what he did. He took the 40+ products they had and cut it down to 4. He reorganized the organizational chart so people knew who to report to (7 executives that reported to him, that’s it). He was sickened by Apple’s inability to execute and started holding people responsible for completing projects on time. If they didn’t perform he let them go. He was focused, so was Jack Welch.

Then after I got my team to focus I would wipe out the home page. Talk about sensory overload. Simplify and focus. Choice is not always a good thing, especially when I don’t know what I want or what I should be doing on the site.

Peter

on 18 Nov 08

Go to Disneyland!

john

on 18 Nov 08

i’d organize a winner take all game of texas hold em with brin, page, gates, ellison, joy, jobs, zuckerberg and bezos. just get it over with.

I’d meet everyone in the company and hear their story, ideas, frustrations, complaints, ambitions. Then, using the resources of a huge organization like Yahoo!, I’d give as many “green lights” as possible financially and become the #1 cheerleader for all those great people who have been STUCK in a stale system.

condor

on 18 Nov 08

I’d clean house at all levels (upper and middle management especially) of all the conventional overachievers that have fattened the ranks over the last 7+ years that yahoo has gone down hill. I’d then rehire mostly recent college grads from anywhere else but Stanford.

The first thing (after familiarizing myself with the inner workings of course), would be to start trimming the fat. Yahoo! is a great organization with a lot of power; however, the bulk that they’ve obtained through the years is unbelievable. Y!’s gold is buried deep in their community, and I would take a huge leap at trying to dig up that potential.

I’d ditch the idea that search needs to be done in house and sign a deal with Google to implement their technologies. With Google under the hood, they can focus on the “Search User Experience” a bit more and figure out a more elegant approach to advertising. As mentioned above, I definitely agree that Yahoo needs to begin monetizing their “real estate” a bit more, and they can easily do that by creating an ad-network that rivals AdWords/AdSense.

There’s plenty of things that can be done, I’m hoping the new CEO is a bit more radical than Yang and begins to implement some of the ideas shared here.

Do something similar to what Steve did when he came back to Apple. Milk revenue from your best apps (Flickr, Finance, etc) and work on the next greatest web thing. Of course, this plan would probably hinge on having a visionary leader…

1 – Find out what businesses want from the portfolio of products that Yahoo! currently supports.

2 – Find out which and more importantly how products in Yahoo!’s portfolio are being used by web visitors.

3 – Consolidate products based on steps 1 and 2 to reinforce a core suite of products.

4 – Yahoo! appliance for businesses. Not just search, but an “Intranet” in an appliance format. Now that Yahoo! is focused on interoperability of their platform this would be a great way to get instant infrastructure.

5 – Use the consumer level products available freely on the web to begin developing micro-payment tools. Like Yahoo! Mail, but wish it did X, Y, & Z? Well…buy a developer license from Yahoo! and develop a plugin that you can then turn around and sell to people who use Yahoo! Mail. Basically taking the Greasemonkey concept and monetizing it based off of Yahoo!’s platform.

That’d be my 5 first tasks as the head of Yahoo!

cc

on 18 Nov 08

Focus on strengths and core products (Search, Mail, Maps, Ads, developer tools). Operate everything else as independent subsidiaries that get preferential access to Yahoo resources (like infrastructure and APIs). For stuff that isn’t working, sell it or spin it off.

Agreed on RSS. Just because Jason doesn’t have the self-discipline to use it effectively doesn’t mean nobody else does.

someone

on 18 Nov 08

Yahoo should capitalize on its assets it already has. The main one it has is an incredible amount of frontpage traffic. There are millions and millions of people who have a mental model that you access “the Internet” starting with Yahoo, and only Yahoo.

I’d take a big step back and figure out what exactly Yahoo means and what Yahoo is trying to be. Is it a media company? search? advertising? tech? Figure out what they are and then relentlessly focus on it so they can plan on how they’re going to lead that industry for the next decade and beyond.

Because of their lack of focus, they are lukewarm in every area and are being eroded by better more specialized competitors. Focusing and aligning all of their resources to dominate certain industries has to be a better strategy than fighting a losing battle on 20 different fronts simultaneously.

p-daddy

I would split the company to self managed units. Cross funding between these should be minimal. The unit that is slacking goes under without too much regret. New projects should still be encouraged but should fail fast if they don’t show early signs of success. Of course I am not qualified (nor willing) to run such a huge operation but I though I’d join the party.

designslave

1. Review all products and services.
2. Kill/Sell anything that we suck at or doesn’t make sense.
3. Break the company into 4 divisions — Apps, Content, Search, Social.
4. Spend as much as we can recruiting the the best.
5. Fire anyone that is satisfied with the status quo.
6. Market and Advertise — Think Purple. (cow)
7. Sell keywords for less than Google does.
8. Sell a chunk of the search business to Microsoft.
9. Do a windows integration deal with Microsoft.
10. Hire Seth Godin as CMO, pay him a lot.

P.S. Probably buy LinkedIn for $1 Billion and Digg for 100 million if we had it in cash from the MS deal.

John A Davis

It’s too late for Yahoo! since they have already gone the dread route of an IPO. It’s also too late for Google and other public companies who have shareholders for the sole reason of profit; they just haven’t hit the roof quite yet. It’s maths, baby.

What a crazy world, where a company can be both intensely popular and profitable enough to provide a good lifestyle for the entire team, yet considered “in trouble” because it’s not gobbling up the world as greedily as that silly class of people (the class, not the people), called shareholders, demand.

Rajarajan

on 19 Nov 08

Do a few things really great rather than trying to be good across all the stuff you have. That’s not going to work. You have some really nice stuff like Web toolkit, Answers, Finance. Just focus and do it right…

why have social features in flickr different from Yahoo Answers, or Yahoo Mail. Consolidate and pick the best of breed.

Jack

on 19 Nov 08

Yahoo is dead. Google lead the search and gaining all the functions provided by Yahoo’s portal. Google just let you customized all the Google services. There is really nothing left at Yahoo. There are no talnet left at Yahoo. Look how many people already walked after Yang take over as CEO. For example, flicker founders already or will be gone.

For those who think hiring young talents will save Yahoo. yeah, keep dreaming buddy. Yahoo can’t create anything new that’s why Yahoo buy site like flicker.

Diwant Vaidya

on 19 Nov 08

I wonder if one of the above comments is Jerry posting as someone else.

Most people on here don’t have a clue on what would make Yahoo turn around because they are not familiar with it’s internals, including myself… so I won’t pretend to know what’s best for Y!

With that said, here’s where I’d start:

First thing that needs to be done is decide what the mission is. Is it to increase profitability, market-share or investor value?

They are not all mutually exclusive but they do determine where people & resources need to be directed.

If the goal is to increase profitability, you’ve got two objectives: more advertisers and more revenue from advertisers. To achieve either, they need to step into the shoe of their advertisers and focus on helping them make more money. Google has done this in many ways over the years. Multiple ad testing, google analytics, google landing page optimizers, etc etc. They need to live for their advertisers.

If your goal is to increase market-share, they need to decide who they are for consumers.

If they want to be a Google-killer, they have to out-Google Google. Which means they need to be cleaner and deliver better results.

I suspect that they can’t out-Google Google. They would have done it by now if they could have.

What they need is a more attract value proposition than “clean fast relevant search engine”. That’s a tall order.

They had Local Search going for them but they blew it by not telling everyone about it. They gave Google time to catch up and now people don’t have a clue which is better or worst.

They need to take bold steps. Offer what Google cannot offer. And this won’t come from some guy/gal who just gets a bright idea. It’s something where you have to throw a bunch of things on the wall and keep a careful eye on what sticks and what kind of sticks. Their open strategy by pay off big here if it works.

If the goal is to increase investor value (aka stock price), they need to be honest. I know nothing about dealing with investors of a publicly traded company but I know that being open and honest builds confidence in you as a person. Once you admit you have a problem, one that could possibly be fatal, you can move to fixing it.